Page 188 of Kentrell

Because if I didn’t…

I’d fall apart.

When I told him to take me home… I hadn’t meant it sweet.

I wanted to piss my mother off.

I wanted her to watch me leave with him… to assume the worst… to imagine me curled up in a bed somewhere… letting some man do all the things she probably told herself I was too good for.

I wanted her to follow after us—hair a mess, robe still clutched at her chest, looking crazy and desperate and exposed…

Only to turn onto my block and find the cinderblocks of my house still smoldering.

To see the crime scene tape.

To realize the “home” I asked for… wasn’t the one she thought it was.

Let that eat her up.

And honestly…

Part of me wished Kentrell didn’t live downtown.

I wanted him to just keep driving.

Past the skyline. Past the neighborhoods.

Past anything that smelled like betrayal and burnt eggs.

“Why didn’t she tell me?” I whispered, not really expecting an answer.

But Kentrell glanced over, eyes still soft but steady.

“Prolly thought she was protecting you.”

I scoffed. Bitter. Not wanting to hear Zora’s excuse from his lips.

“From what? The truth?”

My voice cracked at the end… and I hated that it did.

I didn’t want to sound weak.

Didn’t want to sound like the little girl who used to kneel by her bed…

Praying for her daddy’s soul to rest in peace.

I pressed the back of my hand to my lips, willing the tears to stay right where they were.

My chest rose too fast. Too shallow.

“She made me believe he was dead,” I muttered, each word cutting deeper as it came out.

“She gave me a whole damn eulogy, Kentrell… told me he died an honorable man… that he set the standard.”

I laughed—dry and bitter—like the joke was on me.

And maybe it was.

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